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The Radiant Forest
The Radiant Forest more specifically brings together small
radiant specimens of the eastern forest of North America (ash, maple, oak, poplar). Their imprints, captured on negative film by an EM process, are reprinted on positive film and backlit using various installation devices.
At the sight of the natural world’s luminous panorama, the great poet-botanist Goethe would be overwhelmed by illuminations that plunged him into the contemplation of an augmented reality. He would see the crimson-red bells of a Bigonia radicans "radiate enchantingly" and the poppy fields ablaze before his eyes. He imagined the infinite variety of plants in Nature inhabited by evolutionary forces organized according to a plan.
The imprints of plants express the luminous reality of the living in the forest and its discreet activity at all levels. The small traces allow us to imagine light transmitting subtle information to matter. Through a resonance effect, I conceive how the intense radiation of leaves encoded in the photographic image continues to vibrate the brain at some original frequency, thereby even provoking a reorganization of the neurons.
In one of its variants, the installation of The Radiant Forest displays a series of metal circle images like heavenly bodies as counterpoint to the collections of leaves. The circles express a tension between earthly vegetation and cosmic influences modulating growth through their attractions.
> Bodies of Light no. 1102 (Maple).
Backlit film, 18,5 cm x 13 cm. [1]
> Bodies of Light no. 440 (Elm), cut stem. Idem. [2]
> Bodies of Light no. 26 (Metal circle). Idem. [3]
> Bodies of Light no. 731 (Metal circle). Idem. [4]
> Bodies of Light no. 665 (Leaf). Idem. [5]
> Bodies of Light no. 184 (Maple),
lacerated leaf. Idem. [6]
> Bodies of Light no. 672a (Tiarella). Idem. [7]
> Bodies of Light no. 727 (Metal circle). Idem. [8]
> Bodies of Light no. 841 (Black currant). Idem. [9]
> Bodies of Light no. 931 (Sumac). Idem. [10]
> Details extracted from African violet and
vine leaves. Lightbox, 53 cm x 198 cm. [11]
> Mélodies d’univers. Backlit modules, 2019. [12]
> The Radiant Forest. Installation, 2014. [13]
> Photon+. Backlit images, 2012. [14]
> The Dream of Forms. Installation, 2017. [15]